UK's obesity and overweight epidemic costs £126bn a year, study suggests

The Guardian

3 days ago

The cost of the UK's epidemic of overweight and obesity has soared to £126bn a year, far higher than previous estimates, according to a study.
The bill includes the costs of NHS care (£12.6bn), the years people spend in poor health because of their weight (£71.4bn) and the damage to the economy (£31bn).
The calculations, by Frontier Economics for the Nesta thinktank, have prompted calls from food campaigners for ministers to take more robust action to tackle obesity, for example by extending the sugar tax from fizzy drinks to a wider range of sweet foods and beverages.
Henry Dimbleby, the co-founder of the Leon restaurant chain who was commissioned by the previous Conservative government to write a report on the state of the country's food system, said: 'We've created a food system that's poisoning our population and bankrupting the state.
'This report shows that poor diet now costs the UK a shocking £126bn a year. That's not a crisis. That's a collapse.'
The fact that 64% of people in Britain are overweight or obese costs the economy £31bn, Frontier found. That is enough for the government to cut income tax by 3p and is more than what is spent annually on policing in the four home nations, it added.
Tim Leunig, Nesta's chief economist, said: 'Obesity has doubled since the 90s and causes a host of terrible health problems, like type 2 diabetes and cancer.
'This means obesity makes people less effective at work, forces them to take time off to manage illness or causes them to leave the workforce entirely owing to ill health.'
Ministers are grappling with how to address the fact that 2.8 million people across the UK – 700,000 more than when Covid hit – are economically inactive due to illness, according to Office for National Statistics figures.
In 2022, Frontier calculated the cost of obesity to be £58bn a year. It revised its estimate in 2023 to £98bn in analysis for the Tony Blair Institute. Its £126bn figure for Nesta is higher because it includes for the first time analysis of the costs of overweight as well as obesity.
Kawther Hashem, the head of research at Action on Sugar, said the £126bn annual cost of obesity was staggering and should be a wake-up call.
Voluntary action by the food industry to fight obesity has failed, so ministers need to impose compulsory targets on food firms, backed by financial penalties, to greatly reduce the amount of salt and sugar in their products, Hashem added.
Nesta estimated the annual economic costs of being overweight and obesity to be:
£71.4bn – cost of reduced quality of life and mortality.
£12.6bn – financial cost of treatment for NHS.
£12.1bn – from unemployment due to overweight and obesity.
£10.5bn – cost of informal care.
£9.7bn – lower productivity among those still working.
£8.3bn – sick days due to weight-related illness.
£1.2bn – cost of formal care.
£700m – lost output due to weight-related early death.
Katharine Jenner, the director of the Obesity Health Alliance, urged ministers to extend the sugar tax on fizzy drinks and limit the amount of sugar in baby and toddler food.
Leunig said the advertising of unhealthy food should be restricted, front of pack labelling introduced and more money put into weight-loss drugs.
Nesta's report said that the costs of excess weight will keep growing and could hit £150bn by 2035 without firm action to fight obesity.
It states: 'Obesity-related costs are projected to keep rising over the next decade. By 2035, this report estimates the annual cost of excess weight will reach £150bn (in 2025 prices), with productivity losses alone accounting for £36.3bn a year.
'Without a meaningful policy shift to slow – let alone reverse – the growth in obesity, its impact on productivity is set to rise by 18% over the next 10 years in real terms.'
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said that more obese people in England would be able to access NHS weight management services – and weight-loss drugs – as a result of the government's 10-year plan for the NHS, which is coming out on Thursday.